Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

“You owe me five pounds,” Christopher said the following afternoon, as we entered the small ballroom at Marsden Manor.

We had left Wiltshire after breakfast, the four of us in Constance’s burgundy Crossley with Francis behind the wheel. Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert were following tomorrow in the Bentley, for the big sit-down dinner in honor of the happy couple, but they hadn’t wanted to deal with all the Bright Young Things that were sure to be crawling all over the manor until then. Tonight was for the young set, while the older generation—aunts, uncles, and grandparents—would be arriving tomorrow.

After a leisurely drive through the lower half of Wiltshire and into Dorset, with a stop at a local pub for luncheon, we had arrived in Marsden-on-Crane in time for afternoon tea. The clicking of cups and clinking of spoons and forks was audible from the other end of the vast entrance hall as we were admitted into Marsden Manor by the Marsdens’ butler, a spindly specimen of advanced age with a mostly bald pate and a bulbous nose.

“Good afternoon, Miss Constance,” he intoned, inclining his head a perfectly appropriate amount. “It is nice to see you back in Marsden, if I may say so. And this must be your intended. Good afternoon, Mr. Astley.”

“Hello, Perkins,” Constance smiled. “Yes, this is Francis. And his brother Christopher, and Miss Philippa Darling. She and I went to Godolphin together.”

Perkins ran an experienced eye over the two men, before coming to me. It felt as if he examined me a bit more intently than the other two, although it might have been my imagination. On the other hand, it might be that he had heard about me from Laetitia or her mother, too. Geoffrey might pursue me when I’m available, but I’m certain he wouldn’t spare me a thought when I’m out of sight, and Maurice, Earl of Marsden, would have had no reason to bring me up to his butler.

Laetitia, on the other hand, or Lady Euphemia, might well have given Perkins instructions on how to handle me. I wondered whether I’d end up stuck in the servant wing as if I were someone’s companion and not an invited guest in my own right.

“You will be staying on the first floor,” Perkins told Constance, as he gestured to the wide staircase. “Leave the luggage. Bert will bring it upstairs.”

A footman stepped forward out of the shadows as we were ushered up to the next level and to the left down the hallway. “Miss Constance—” Perkins indicated a door, “you’ll be in the Primrose room.”

Constance nodded, looking pleased.

“Miss Darling—” Perkins flicked a glance at me. “Your room is up one level, in Wisteria.”

“Thank you.” I looked at Constance’s door. There was a small plate on it with the name of the room painted on porcelain. Presumably it was the same upstairs.

“Perhaps the Misters Astley wouldn’t mind sharing a bedchamber? We have a full house this weekend, and some of the other guests are unaccompanied and unrelated.”

In other words, it was all right to ask Christopher and Francis to share a room, because they had arrived together, from the same place, and were brothers. Much harder to ask, for instance, the Graf von Natterdorff to bunk up with the Viscount St George, and quite impossible to expect him to share a room with Francis.

For the first time it occurred to me to wonder how that whole situation was going to play out once Wolfgang got here. (Or he might be here already. I hadn’t heard his voice in the buzz down in the entrance hall, and he has a distinctive accent, but he might have been there and simply been quiet.)

Christopher and I hadn’t mentioned Wolfgang’s existence to Francis, or for that matter to anyone else in the family. Crispin knew, of course. Christopher, for reasons known only unto himself, had decided to let his cousin know about Wolfgang’s existence as soon as the latter introduced himself over tea at the Savoy last month.

Or not quite as soon as, but it was only a few hours later that he went out of his way to find a call box and ring up St George at Sutherland Hall. And then, of course, Crispin had hared off to London at the first opportunity to get a look at Wolfgang himself.

We hadn’t told anyone else, however. Crispin might have done, but St George’s relationship with his father was already fraught, and I didn’t think His Grace, Uncle Harold, would have been receptive to his son’s complaining. Besides, if Crispin had told his father that I was being courted—or so it seemed—by a German nobleman, I couldn’t imagine that the news wouldn’t have made its way from Uncle Harold to Uncle Herbert and Aunt Roz. And neither of them had said a word about it in the past twenty-four hours. So chances were they didn’t know, nor did Francis.

And that begged the question of how he was going to react once he found out.

As it turned out, I didn’t have all that long to wait. But before we got to that point, I told Perkins that if bedchambers were a problem, I would be happy to share with Constance. We had done so before, at the Dower House. It wouldn’t hurt me to spend another two nights in the same room as my cousin’s fiancée.

But no, Perkins said that if the young gentlemen would just consent to bunking together, that would solve the problem, and then Christopher and Francis followed Perkins down the hallway for a look at their shared room, while Constance and I went into Primrose.

It had pale green walls and ivory bed hangings, with a sunny yellow counterpane. I looked around and nodded approvingly. “Very nice.”

“I’ve always liked Primrose,” Constance agreed, sitting down on the bed and folding her hands in her lap, “although Wisteria is lovely, too. Gray and lilac, with touches of green. The rooms on the second floor are all smaller than this.”

I nodded. It was the same at Beckwith Place, so nothing new about that at all.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” I said, and Constance looked up at me with bright, brown eyes.

She’s a small girl, a bit on the plump side, with soft, brown hair and a round face. If I wanted to be unkind, I could say that she looked like the human equivalent of a brown sparrow, but that’s only a derogatory statement if you don’t like sparrows. I would personally rather one of them than a peacock or parrot or anything of that nature.

Constance isn’t the loud and flashy sort, is what I mean. She isn’t shy, but she has always been quiet and thoughtful instead of forward. Not the type to draw attention to herself. We hadn’t been close at Godolphin—I always found her a bit too meek for my taste—but I have grown to appreciate her over the past few months. It helps that Francis adores her, of course, and she him, but she’s also a bit more sly and sarcastic than I remember. She might have grown into it as she has gotten older, or perhaps she had simply hid it better back in our boarding school days.

“A few weeks ago,” I began, “I met this man. We were having tea at the Savoy, Christopher and I, and he came up to the table and introduced himself…”

“So that is why Lord St George suddenly decided to propose to Laetitia,” Constance said when I had finished the tale, adding two and two together with admirable speed.

I nodded. “We argued back and forth by letter, and he was rude and dismissive of Wolfgang, which obviously extends to me, as I have the same faults as Wolfgang does. I told him to go cry on Laetitia’s shoulder, and propose while he was at it, since they deserve one another.”

“That was remarkably unkind of you,” Constance said placidly.

I made a face. “I didn’t think that he would actually do it. If I had done…”

I trailed off, and started over. “At any rate, Laetitia has seen fit to invite Wolfgang to the party this weekend.”

“Oh, dear,” Constance said.

I nodded. “I don’t know what she was thinking. Crispin despises him, so for his sake alone, she ought to have left it alone. And Francis is here, and perhaps a few other men, too, who served in the trenches during the War. And you know that your Aunt Euphemia has no love for Germans—she made that very clear when she met me at Beckwith Place two months ago?—”

“In justice to Aunt Effie,” Constance said, with a twitch of her lips, “I think that may have been influenced by the way you greeted Lord St George on that occasion.”

Well, yes. Perhaps so. He had been sharing a chair with Laetitia when Christopher and I walked into the drawing room, and I had ignored her presence to pass on love from a neighbor in London. Florence Schlomsky—or the woman we’d thought of as Flossie Schlomsky—had had a bad habit of pushing St George into the corner of the lift in the Essex House Mansions and snogging him, so I knew very well what passing on love from Flossie was supposed to look like.

Not that I did that. Of course not. Crispin and I are not on kissing terms. But I did put my hand on his cheek and stared deeply into his eyes for long enough that he might have expected something more than he ended up getting, and neither Lady Laetitia nor her mother had appreciated it. Nor had Crispin, for that matter.

I drew myself up. “Be that as it may, your aunt isn’t a fan. Nor is Crispin, nor will Francis be, once he finds out. So I need your help with keeping Wolfgang and Francis away from each other.”

“That won’t be easy if the man is courting you,” Constance pointed out.

I made a face. No, it wouldn’t. Perhaps I should have stuck with my initial plan, and refused to be here this weekend.

Christopher had been right, though: if I didn’t turn up, the ladies of the Bright Young Set would swarm Wolfgang, and then one of them might turn his head.

Being courted for a weekend wouldn’t be too painful, I supposed. He was handsome, certainly—aside from Lord Geoffrey Marsden (and the late, great Rudolph Valentino, may he rest in peace), he was probably the best-looking man I had ever seen. And besides, it was likely to annoy St George to distraction, which is always enjoyable when I can manage it. Being monopolized by Wolfgang might also help to keep Lord Geoffrey away from me, which was all to the good.

Constance nodded when I said as much. “My cousin is horrible. Yours is too, of course, but at least he’s engaged to Laetitia now. But this weekend is just the sort of occasion Geoffrey lives for. Lots of young women, and wedding bells in the air.”

A rather unpleasant thought, that. “Do you know who’s expected?”

Constance rattled off a string of names and titles. Interestingly, they included several Bright Young Persons whose names I knew. Lady Violet Cummings and the Honorable Cecily Fletcher had both received invitations, and in addition to being friends of Laetitia’s—or so I assumed—they were also prior dalliances of Crispin’s.

“Why on earth would Laetitia want to invite her new fiancé’s former conquests to their engagement party?” I inquired, baffled.

“I imagine she wants to gloat,” Constance answered. “She’s the one who managed to tie him down, after all. I’m sure the others must have tried, or at least hoped for that outcome. Small wonder if she wants to rub it in their faces that she succeeded where they failed.”

Well, yes. Getting herself permanently stuck to the future Duke of Sutherland was reason enough to gloat, I supposed, and it did sound like something Laetitia would do. Still, it seemed stupid. Why go out of her way to remind Crispin of that which he could no longer have now that he was engaged to her?

Although perhaps she hadn’t considered that angle. Perhaps rubbing her good fortune in her friends’ faces had been enough of an incentive, and she hadn’t reasoned past it.

“Did either of them dally with Geoffrey?” I wanted to know, and Constance made a face.

“I don’t know, Pippa. I never spent much time in those circles, and Geoffrey, believe it or not, doesn’t brag about his conquests. At least not to me. You’re probably more likely to know the answer to that than I am.”

“I never spent much time with them, either,” I said. “Most of what I know is because of Crispin’s involvement.” And that only because of Grimsby the valet’s blackmail dossier. Crispin doesn’t brag, either. Or at least he doesn’t to me, nor do I think to Christopher.

“I suppose we’ll see before supper,” Constance said and got to her feet. “Will you help me with my toilette, Pippa? Otherwise, Francis might look at the other women and change his mind about marrying me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I told her. “Francis isn’t shallow. He loves you. And he won’t care what anyone else looks like. All he’ll see is you.”

The weekend party at the Dower House when they had first fallen in love was proof positive of that. Lady Laetitia had been there, and so had Lady Peckham’s ward, an absolutely stunning Dutch beauty by the name of Johanna de Vos, and Francis hadn’t had eyes for anyone but Constance. That wasn’t likely to have changed.

“Fine,” Constance said. “Perhaps I just want to look good enough that nobody will wonder why he’s marrying me.”

“No one who knows either of you wonders about that. But I’ll be happy to help you dress. Although—” I glanced around, taking in the walls of the Primrose Room and beyond them, the rest of Marsden Manor, “aren’t there maids here that’ll do that?”

“Aunt Effie has a maid,” Constance nodded, “as does Laetitia, of course. I’m sure either of them would be happy to help. But I’d rather have you.”

“I’d be happy to help you get ready,” I assured her. “And if you’d like, we can have Christopher do your face. He’s better with makeup than I am.”

Constance opened her mouth, presumably to decline, and I added, “I plan to have him do my face. The competition will be fierce this weekend. Both Violet Cummings and Cecily Fletcher are lovely, and so is Laetitia, and I’m not about to look like the poor country cousin by comparison. And if he’s doing my face, he might as well do yours, too.”

Constance thought about it and closed her mouth, and so it was that when we entered the Marsden Manor ballroom an hour and a half later—Constance on Francis’s arm, and I on Christopher’s—we both looked as good as we ever had.

Constance was in her rose-colored frock, which brought out that British roses-and-cream complexion and the flush in her cheeks, while Christopher had talked me into an ivory silk crepe gown on our shopping expedition the week before. It was deceptively simple, with beaded embroidery along the square neckline and at the dropped waist, and a fluttery handkerchief hem that danced around my knees when I walked. Francis took one look at me and let out a whoop of laughter.

“What?” I sniffed.

His lips twitched. “You’re determined to kill him, aren’t you?”

“I beg your pardon? Christopher talked me into this frock, I’ll have you know.”

“Of course he did.” Francis turned to his brother. “He’s going to murder you, Kit. You know that, don’t you?”

Christopher hummed, but didn’t respond beyond that. Nor did he look at either of us, just kept his attention fixed on the ceiling.

“Who’s going to murder Christopher?” I wanted to know, glancing from one to the other of them. “And for what reason?”

“St George,” Francis said.

I scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. St George adores Christopher. He’d never hurt him. And what’s wrong with my frock, pray tell?”

“Nothing at all,” Francis said, giving it another once-over. “You look lovely, Pipsqueak. Just like a bride on her wedding day.” His lips twitched again.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s only to the wedding itself that one is not supposed to wear white, Francis. This is an engagement party, and white—or ivory; this is ivory, I’ll have you know—ivory is fair game. The bride-to-be will likely be wearing black.”

Constance made a face. “Surely not for her own engagement party?”

“We have a bet,” I told her. “I have to pay Christopher five pounds if her gown is black. I suppose we’ll see when we get downstairs.”

At the reminder, Francis clicked his heels together and presented his elbow. Constance took it and they turned towards the stairs. I stuck my hand through Christopher’s arm and followed.

“She does look marvelous in black,” Constance said over her shoulder.

I nodded. “But a bit much for the occasion, don’t you think? Surely she won’t want to look like she’s in deep mourning for the second most joyous occasion of her life?”

Or perhaps the third most joyous. Or fourth. Engagement, wedding, birth of their first child. And surely the day when Uncle Harold kicked the bucket and Crispin ascended to the dukedom (and brought Laetitia with him) would rank high, as well.

“I’m with Kit,” Francis said. “The gown will be black.”

“Five pounds?”

He smiled indulgently. “Why not? More importantly, I think we need to discuss Pippa’s wedding frock and what will come of walking in there wearing it.”

“Nothing will come of me wearing it,” I said. “And it’s not a wedding frock.”

Francis gave it another look over his shoulder. “It might as well be.”

“Well, it’s not. It’s just an ivory frock. Although with the way you’re carrying on, now I wish I had gone with the seafoam green with bronze beads instead.”

“I don’t,” Christopher said. “You look lovely, Pippa. And you’ll make a nice contrast with Laetitia once we get down there.”

“If she’s wearing black.”

“She will be,” Christopher said and shifted his grip to my elbow as we started to descend the stairs.

Marsden Manor was in possession of an actual ballroom, and that’s where tonight’s gathering took place. When we walked through the open doors, the happy couple was standing in front of the fireplace directly opposite, each of them with a glass of champagne. Laetitia had Crispin in a death grip with her other hand, of course—it was almost as if she were afraid he would try to get away if she didn’t hang onto him—and yes, she was wearing head-to-toe black.

Christopher turned to me, and I nodded, resigned. “I’ll get it to you later.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” He squeezed my hand. “In justice to her, she does carry it off.”

And how. I made a face but didn’t respond. There was nothing I could say, at least not without sounding green-eyed with envy, which I didn’t want to do.

Laetitia Marsden is a year or two older than Crispin, and for that matter than Christopher, Constance, and myself. She’s twenty-four or perhaps twenty-five, and she’s remarkably beautiful. Tall, almost as tall as Crispin in her T-strap heels, and willowy. The current slinky fashions look marvelous on her. Her hair is cut in a sharp Dutch boy bob, most likely with the help of a ruler, and it’s jet black and shiny, framing her face like a cap of satin.

The gown was amazing. A net overdress shimmered with black sequins and blue beads in the shape of peonies. It topped a black underdress of satin or crepe, and the whole thing ended in a row of beaded fringe that danced around Laetitia’s calves every time she shifted her weight. It was beyond sophisticated, probably haute couture direct from Paris, and while I knew I looked good in my ivory silk crepe, I felt like a little girl in a pinafore next to a grown woman.

“Chin up,” Christopher murmured as we made our way across the floor towards them, trailing Constance and Francis. There was something of the feeling of approaching royalty. The people on either side of us, chatting in groups of two and three with glasses of champagne in their hands, drew away from us as we crossed the floor, giving us what felt like furtive looks out of the corners of their eyes.

In some cases, the looks were less than furtive. One young woman—I’m fairly certain she was Lady Violet Cummings, based on the peroxide blond shingled bob—looked Christopher up and down, and leaned towards her companion’s ear with a titter and whisper. The companion—perhaps the Honorable Cecily Fletcher?—took one look at him, and one at me, before shooting an agonized look at her friend, and then looking away.

“Stiff upper lip,” Christopher admonished, brushing past them without a glance.

“I don’t know that I have it in me to congratulate her,” I muttered, giving the two young ladies my back in favor of focusing on Laetitia. “She looks so indecently triumphant, doesn’t she?”

“Then congratulate him ,” Christopher said.

I made a face. “That’s even worse. At least she scored a future duke. All he got was a shrew with an eye to his title and fortune.”

“I think perhaps you’re being a little unfair,” Christopher said gently. “She does seem to want him for himself, too.”

“God only knows why.”

“I imagine she knows him in ways you don’t,” Christopher said just as Constance and Francis came to a stop in front of the happy couple.

I flicked him an annoyed look. “Well, I know that , Christopher. It was discussed over dinner last night, remember? Do you really think now is the time to remind me?”

“No time like the present,” Christopher said. “At least you’ve got some color in your cheeks now.”

I sniffed. “There was color in my cheeks before, too. You put it there yourself, upstairs in Constance’s room.” Along with rice powder, mascara, and lipstick.

“You know what I mean,” Christopher said and plastered a benign expression on his face. “Don’t let her see that she gets to you. Turn that frown upside down.”

I scowled at him as, in front of us, Constance went up on tiptoes to kiss Laetitia’s cheek.

“Felicitations, old chap,” Francis said and slapped Crispin on the shoulder. The latter staggered. Constance murmured something no doubt appropriate to her cousin along with the kiss, and then they stepped out of the way, and it was our turn.

Christopher squeezed my hand and took a step forward. I, perforce, followed.